Robinson has had a strange relationship with Quilliam. He took their money while in prison, but lately they areKirbmarc wrote: ↑I'm not a fan of Robinson's exactly for this reason. He's a hothead, he often acts before he thinks, he does things that look like attention-grabbing celebrity stunts and end up backfiring. Targeting Qulliam was very dumb. Inviting Pettibone and Southern, who are ethno-nationalists, isn't super clever, either, although in this case the UK thought-police ended up giving the Alt-Right Barbies some free publicity and a lot of public sympathy by treating them as dangerous terrorists, especially since actual terrorist sympathizers are instead treated with kid gloves.Tigzy wrote: ↑Tommy's got heart, balls of titanium, is cleverer than his opponents give him credit for, and is definitely being unfairly targeted by the police. Unfortunately, he also has a bull-in-a-china-shop approach which means he indulges in such idiocies as storming the Quilliam premises. A supremely stupid and potentially dangerous act, considering a good number of Quilliam employees have very good reason to want to keep their identities concealed. It really doesn't help his case when he does shit like that.shoutinghorse wrote: ↑ Tommy's main stumbling block is that most people still get their info from MSM & Newspapers who continually call him a racist far right thug, they always remind the viewer/reader of his 'problematic' past associations with BNP (18 and only attended one meeting) & EDL founder, they conveniently forget to mention the reason he left were to do with neo Nazi infiltration, also they continually remind us of Tommy's football hooligan youth (half the male population of England over 45 could be reminded of the same, including yours truly)
People are very easily swayed by what they see on the TV or read in the newspapers, it's changing rapidly yes but I would say that the majority still get their information of events this way. If you never listen to what he actually has to say and just watch or read the bias reporting of him then you automatically think he's all the things they say. I used to think the same before I started watching him through YouTube, his talk at Oxford Uni opened my eyes.
Ironically the biggest favour the MSM unwittingly did for him was when the odious Piers Morgan tried to stitch him up on 'Good Morning Britain' and made a complete tit of himself shouting "show some respect man" when Tommy held up the Koran.
one of his targets.
When he left the EDL, he held a joint press conference with them.
He's say they paid him over several months around the time. they deny he was ever on their payroll.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/12 ... 10834.htmlRobinson told the Huffington Post UK that Quilliam, which was once said to receive millions of pounds of government funding, initially paid him £2,000 a month in a deal struck despite him expecting to be imprisoned the following month.
In November 2013 Robinson pleaded guilty to mortgage fraud, and two months later was sentenced to 18 months jail. Once inside, Robinson said Quilliam halved his payments - which were intended to cover "my wife's rent and help with basic bills, in return Tommy Robinson would be their poster boy".
Robinson claims he was on the Quilliam payroll for six months and received about £8,000. During that time, beyond attending the press conference, Robinson got involved in a few "Quilliam-orientated projects". One was a meeting in Luton between the EDL and a group of Muslims that was "chaos".
Quilliam on Friday acknowledged they paid Robinson, but refuted the nature of their financial agreement.
In a statement it said: "Quilliam never claimed to 'deradicalise' Tommy, nor 'reform' him, only that we facilitated his departure from the EDL. Quilliam cannot comment on Tommy's intentions (or "staging") for leaving the EDL, as it cannot read his mind. We simply helped him leave the EDL, rendering that group leaderless since.
"Tommy has never been a Quilliam member of staff, nor on our payroll, nor did he join Quilliam.
"Tommy was remunerated, as an external actor, after invoicing us for costs associated with outreach that he & Dr Usama Hassan did to Muslim communities after Tommy's departure from the EDL, in an attempt to reconcile Tommy with our Muslim communities. "
Robinson on Friday called Quilliam's response PR-Spin.
In his new book, Enemy Of The State, Robinson writes: "In October 2013 you might have seen a lot about Quilliam taking the credit for effectively converting me to the right side of the battle against extremism. I smiled to myself a lot about that.
"I dare say my motives were a bit muddled, although I honestly wanted to discover (if) Quilliam had something to offer but I'm not sure it has.
"Quilliam wanted to be seen to be facilitating my exit from the EDL and taking the credit for it. That was okay, I know how the world of public funding works. They have to show results from somewhere and I ticked the box of sorts."